


desiderium

by dissemble



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissemble/pseuds/dissemble
Summary: Eren had once taken care of Armin's injuries. Now, they heal on their own.
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76
Collections: Twitter Eremin Week 2021





	desiderium

**Author's Note:**

> hi, here’s another piece for twitter’s eremin week. this time, for day 6: shirtless. 
> 
> CW: blood and scarring (typical of wounds, nothing graphic) and spoilers for chapter 112 of the manga. the first scene is spoiler-free, but the second scene is based on events that take place in that chapter (though it's really short). 
> 
> (btw, for the first sentence, a prone position is when you’re lying down flat on your stomach.)

Armin wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, prone. His body is sore, the type of pain that follows extensive use of mobility gear, more than what his somewhat slight yet built body is able to handle. The sheets are of white cotton, a dissimilarity to the standard green canvas sheets that would typically be wrapped around his bunk in the barracks. The white is streaked with a dull red—blood. 

The contrast of the colors fully awakens Armin. He props himself up on his left elbow, right hand moving to brush against the dark marks. It dries and flakes, but when Armin looks down the bed, he sees new ones forming. 

The fresh marks come from a gash across his chest, one which runs down from his left clavicle to underneath his pectoral. He struggles to bring his right hand up to where the wound rests, managing to maintain his balance on one arm despite his fatigue. He presses against it, and it’s only when he sees the wetness covering his fingertips that he starts to feel the pain of it. 

He lets out a small whine when it begins to sting, and he moves to lie down on his back. Armin takes one of the sheets covering his lower body and folds it around his middle and forefinger. He tries to clean the wound, at least enough to get the blood to stop running down his skin. It stains the white sheets a pretty color, despite the hurt it puts Armin through. He grimaces at the thought of getting lectured for possibly ruining a set of bedding. 

The door opens, and for the first time since waking, Armin looks around the room he’s in. 

There are two other beds across from his, and another one by his side. They’re made in the standard way he and other soldiers had been taught to tidy their cots. His is the nearest to the door. There are two side tables and shelves between each bed, stocked with labeled bottles and baskets of cloth.  _ The infirmary,  _ Armin realizes belatedly. He goes to reach for the glass of water that’s perched on his bed table.

Someone sits on his bed, and Armin turns to greet them. Eren.

Armin relaxes, only then realizing he had tensed up in the presence of another person. Eren smiles at him. 

“You feeling any better?”

“Um. I don’t really remember what happened. My chest hurts.” Armin lifts the sheet he had unconsciously pulled over himself when the door had opened and shows Eren his injury. 

Eren frowns at it. “Damn. I probably didn’t wrap it tight enough last night.” He gets up from where he sits next to Armin and walks around to the other side of the bed. He squats down and picks something up, showing Armin a dirty bandage. He grins at him, “Guess you scratched at it too hard or something. It was clearly bothering you enough to take your shirt off.”

Armin looks down at his naked chest, only really noticing his state of undress after Eren had mentioned it. “Mhm, that seems to be the case.” He brings a hand up and rubs the skin that surrounds his cut. “It really hurts, Eren,” he whispers.

Eren stands to walk to one of the shelves. He moves around a couple of the bottles, the clinking sounds blending in with Armin’s soft cries. Eren finds what Armin assumes is an antiseptic, as well as a jar of ointment. He places the glass containers down on the bedside table and goes to where the sink is, across the door of the room. He quickly washes his hands, grabs a roll of bandages and a piece of cloth, and returns to Armin’s bedside once more. 

“Can you lean against the headboard for me? I know this won’t help much, but it’s the best I can do right now,” Eren tells Armin. 

Armin does as Eren asks, dragging his bloodied sheet along with him to grasp onto once Eren starts to clean his injury. He watches as Eren struggles to unscrew the bottle’s lid. There had been reports of an unusually low supply of rubbing alcohol; the nurses had been told to lock their supplies more tightly and keep a keen eye out for idiot soldiers. 

When Eren manages to open it, a little bit sloshes over his fingers and lands on Armin’s skin. Eren licks his thumb and rubs away at it. He takes the smaller of the two cloths and holds it to the lip of the bottle, tilting it. The fabric darkens with the liquid. Eren sets the bottle on his bedside table and looks over at Armin with a wince, holding the wet rag up. Armin sighs miserably and prepares to feel the sting of alcohol press along his chest. 

Eren tries to talk him through it, but Armin can only close his eyes and grip his sheet in response to it. The pressure of the rag lifts briefly, and Armin loosens his hold on the sheet. He thinks Eren has finished until he hears the drag of glass on wood; Eren had picked up the bottle again. 

Eren must have noticed Armin’s tense up yet again; he runs his hand down Armin’s arm, squeezing when he reaches his free hand. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it hurts, but it’s better than getting infected.”

“I know,” Armin groans. “Can you please hurry up? Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The wet cloth goes back over Armin’s skin and wipes across the edge of the cut, dabbing at the middle of the wound. Eren puts the fabric down and tells Armin that he’s done with the disinfecting.

He opens his eyes to Eren opening the jar of ointment, scooping out a hefty amount with two of his fingers. He watches blearily as Eren warms the salve on the back of his other hand and then applies it to his chest. The motions of Eren’s rough fingertips are gentle, and they provide more relief than Armin’s own had. The unraveling of the bandage roll comes next, and Eren asks Armin to sit up fully as he tries to tear the fabric cleanly. Armin does so silently. 

Eren’s breath ghosts along his shoulders as he begins to wrap his upper chest. Armin takes comfort in the continuous sound of inhales and exhales, a pattern more familiar to him than his own. His head starts to droop, brushing against Eren’s own. 

“I’ll be done soon, I promise,” Eren tells him kindly. “Just give me five more minutes, okay? Then you can sleep.”

Armin hums softly and lifts his head. Eren kisses his forehead as he does so, and it makes Armin smile. He moves when Eren instructs him to, lifting his right arm up so that he can guide the bandage across his chest over to where the injury begins at his left collarbone. 

The process takes a while, longer than five minutes. Although they are all trained in basic first-aid, Eren has some difficulties finding an easy way to dress Armin’s wound that would still give him full mobility. Armin doesn’t mind; Eren’s presence, especially his small sounds and caring touches, is well-appreciated. 

Their silence is interrupted by the faint unclasping of safety pins, metal clicking against bone as Eren opens them with his teeth, one hand still clutching the loose ends of Armin’s bandages. One, two, three safety pins go in Eren’s mouth and then onto Armin, each followed by a little pat after being secured. 

“When do you think you took your shirt off? Were you cold when you were sleeping? ” Eren asks, moving to place the rag in the sink. 

“I’m not sure… I didn’t even notice I was hurt until I saw the blood.” Armin brings his hands to cross over his chest. “Um, do you think there’s a spare shirt here? I can’t find mine…” 

Eren walks back to Armin’s bed and crouches down once more. Armin sees his hand moving underneath the bed, and then he’s pulling out the shirt Armin had supposedly gone to bed in. Armin turns away when Eren starts to beat his shirt in the air, an effort to get rid of the inevitable dust that had coated it. Eren looks over the shirt. Dark blood has seeped into its midsection. 

“I’ll wash this for you. Did your sheets get dirty too?” Eren asks as he turns the faucet so that cold water runs over the fabric. He goes to the dresser next to the sink and starts rummaging through its drawers. Armin can see him looking at the inner neck labels of each shirt he picks up, no doubt trying to find one that could fit him. 

Eren comes back with a thick shirt and a pair of pants. Instead of giving them to him, Eren kneels onto the bed and pulls Armin close to him, enough to get his arm around Armin’s back and under his arm. 

“Do you think you can move to the other bed? I need to wash your sheets before the blood fully sets in.”

“Yeah, I feel fine enough to move. It just hurts to put pressure on my chest, but it’s just the usual soreness otherwise.” Armin crosses his legs over so that his bare feet touch the floor. He leans against Eren and together, they work to stand up. 

Once Armin is settled in the new bed, he starts to change. Eren busies himself with stripping the slept-in one. He gathers the sheets and places them underneath the running water. Eren’s motions are mechanical—lather the fabric, rinse the fabric, wring the fabric. Repeat. 

“What happened?” Armin repeats his first question. “Did I fall while using the gear?”

That day’s exercise objective had been to record the time it took to simulate killing a certain number of propped Titans. Apparently, Armin had directed his hook to a soft, rotten part of a tree. It had attached, but the pull of Armin’s body was too much weight to handle. The detachment of the hook from the tree had caused him to tumble in midair; his blades had been drawn, and when he had made a move to balance himself, he had ended up cutting through his chest. Sasha had carried him back.

Armin groans and brings the new sheet up to cover his face. “That’s embarrassing.”

“Not really,” Eren replies as he goes to pull out one of the infirmary’s drying racks. “Connie cut himself too, but it wasn’t as serious as yours. Really, Armin, these types of things happen to all of us.”

_ Barely,  _ Armin thinks. He’ll just have to work harder and make up for this with another exercise.

He lowers the sheet when he hears Eren shuffling around the room; he’s cleaning up the aftermath of tending to Armin. He watches Eren move and thinks of when he had gotten so efficient, so grown. When they were kids, it was always Armin cleaning up after Eren. 

“Can you stay with me?” The question leaves Armin as soon as he sees the boy walking towards the infirmary’s door. 

“What? Yeah, of course. I wasn’t planning on leaving. Just need to refill your glass with the kitchen water.” Eren holds up the cup Armin had emptied when he had first woken up.

“Oh. Okay.”

Armin drifts in and out of a light sleep as he waits for Eren to return. The kitchens were very inconveniently located on the opposite side of the complex as the infirmary. Armin hadn’t noticed that until now. 

He wakes up to Eren gingerly shaking his unharmed shoulder, touch still heated even under the gauze. He offers up the refilled cup to him and asks him to drink. Armin listens, humming loudly as a signal for Eren to lower the cup from his lips. 

Armin settles back into bed and pulls the sheets across his body, opening the cot up for Eren to share. Once Eren pulls the sheets back around them, Armin turns so his back is to the other’s chest. 

“Thank you for helping me today. And yesterday too.” 

He feels Eren’s hand slid underneath his shirt and the press of a small kiss to the back of his neck, the feel of chapped lips muted by Armin’s hair. “I’ll always be here to help you.”

Armin falls asleep to Eren moving his warm hand across his bare stomach. Back and forth, back and forth.

* * *

Armin stares as his wounds heal unnaturally. The respite that is promised with the fading of lacerations and welts does not come; the phantom bruises still ache as much, if not more, as when they had first been dealt to him by a familiar hand. 

The sight makes him sick, but it’s not the effect of his ability that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Rather, he just wishes that another boy had been clumsily wrapping his hand in a bandage and spilling too much alcohol on open cuts, following it with harried  _ sorry sorry sorrys.  _

Armin would give anything to have that back. 

He breathes in deeply to hold back tears, and he makes a decision. 

He grabs the few medicinal supplies Floch had allowed them to carry into the jail cell and begins to work, trying to outrun the biology that allowed him to heal so quickly. He tears a bandage from a bundle and wets it with alcohol. He rubs his split knuckles with it harshly; he doesn’t complain about the burn anymore. 

He rolls out enough to wrap around each of the middle three fingers of each hand. He knows that within five minutes, they’ll be healed on their own. He does it anyway. 

Next, he unbuttons his shirt. He scrubs down his chest with the same bandage, enough to leave his skin a blotchy red. The alcohol does nothing against the bruises, but Armin needs something tangible to convince himself that he’s cleaning away whatever loathing Eren had beat into him. 

He stops rubbing at his left pectoral when he feels the dull beats of his heart through the fabric. The steady sound calms him down enough to put the worn bandage away. He rests his elbows on his knees and sighs, reflecting on what had happened fifteen minutes ago.

Eren’s vitriol had been out of place; never had the boy—man—acted so cruelly towards him and Mikasa. The last time he had raised his voice at him like that had been the morning after the Wall’s fall. A boy so filled with angry love versus a man who had twisted his dreams into something ugly. 

He brings a hand back up to where his heart is, and his fingers start tracing along the part of his chest where his scar had once been. It had been deep, not enough to warrant stitches, but just so to have left a pink, discolored strip of skin. Of course, it had disappeared when he had awoken on the Wall four years ago. Still, the laceration is remembered through his skin’s hypersensitivity there. Whether it’s psychological or physical, Armin doesn’t know. 

Armin looks down at his bare body. Most of the bruises are gone by now, and no doubt so are the wounds on his hands and face. Even so, he continues with his useless routine. Tear, wet, wipe. Tear, wrap, secure. 

He takes care of himself. He doesn’t need anyone’s help. 

**Author's Note:**

> desiderium: an ardent longing or desire, especially for something once had and now lost.
> 
> i wasn’t planning on writing for this prompt, but it came to mind and i thought well. why not. i’m always up for eremin angst. sorry for any choppy parts and/or repetitive wording, i decided that this didn’t need editing. also, i'm sorry if i make it seem as though armin needs eren (???). this was the only type of scenario i could think of for this prompt, and it kinda stuck.


End file.
